


Out of the Belly of the Beast

by Mighty_Ant



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Couldn't fit it in but Selene summons a bunch of gold to pay for the damages to Daisy's convertible, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-New Gods on the Block, Prompt Fic, Resolution, we love a healthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29711274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mighty_Ant/pseuds/Mighty_Ant
Summary: Daisy tries to shake off her lingering fear after seeing the Titan swallow Donald.Donald tries to apologize for ruining their second date.
Relationships: Daisy Duck/Donald Duck
Comments: 11
Kudos: 86





	Out of the Belly of the Beast

Donald looks surprised to see her. 

His headfeathers are still soaked from his shower to rid himself of the Titan’s slime, and they’re dripping onto the collar of his shirt. He’s holding a towel in one hand, his arm bent and frozen in midair, presumably to finish drying himself off. But instead he stares at Daisy from across the room, eyes slightly wide, like he’s fairly convinced he’s imagining her. 

In all fairness, he had left her outside of a bathroom just down the hall so that she could wash Crownus’ bile off her own face. But even with her hands shaking from the sudden lack of adrenaline, that had only taken her a few minutes. Her options then were fretting over the stains on her dress that had already set and in the process loitering in the hallway of the richest duck in the world, or waiting for Donald in the guest room adjoining the private bathroom where he took his much needed shower. 

She knows it’s slightly presumptuous of her but after the night’s craziness, being able to put a closed door between herself and the rest of the world, save for the muffled, ordinary sound of a running shower, was a balm to her frayed nerves. With any other guy, Daisy might think it was her presumptuousness that’s put Donald off, but he doesn’t look embarrassed. Far from it, in fact. 

He’s looking at her like he did less than an hour ago, tumbling into the frigid night air covered in monster spit, when she cupped his face in her hands. She’d been overwhelmed, her throat raw from screaming at a hundred foot nightmare and heart still skipping with residual terror over having seen her  _ boyfriend  _ devoured, so certain that she’d just lost the best thing that’s happened to her since getting accepted into the St. Canard School of Fashion and Design. 

She’d reached out to Donald, desperate to touch but afraid to hurt, unsure if his time in the Titan’s belly had injured him in any way. He’d frozen under her hands, startled and blushing, before following her lead. 

He’s looking at her now like he did then, frozen in his disbelief, and drinking in the sight of her as if she might disappear between one blink and the next. 

Like before, Daisy decides to make the first move. 

“You’re dripping all over the carpet,” she chides. She holds out her hand, beckoning him closer, because she needs to remind herself that he’s here, whole, beside her. And his uncle probably wouldn’t appreciate water damage to his floors. 

Donald starts, blustering a bit in that wordless way of his as he finally swipes the towel ineffectually through his head feathers. But he moves to join her on the edge of the four poster bed where she’s sitting, smiling hesitantly. 

Daisy clicks her tongue and takes the towel from him, rubbing his feathers dry in the same brisk fashion she does her nieces after bath time. Donald sputters under the towel, and he’s laughing when he finally pushes her hands away. 

“Okay, okay, I think I’m dry! You did it!” 

Mollified, Daisy pulls back and has to resist the urge to laugh herself when she sees the way Donald’s feathers stand on end. Combined with his t-shirt, a pleasant change from his usual sailor uniform, it makes him look younger, the perpetual lines of exhaustion around his eyes less deep. 

She’s reaching out to smooth his feathers before she can think to second guess herself. By the time she’s realized his face is in her hands again Donald has already stiffened, a handsome blush racing across his beak. 

Daisy pauses with her hands near his jaw, surprised by the turn of events but far from unhappy. Donald’s pulse thrums under her palms, each beat a reminder that he’s safe, that’s he’s here, with her. 

“Is this okay?” she asks when Donald doesn’t mirror her touch as he did before. 

“Yes,” he blurts at once, clutching at her wrists like he’s afraid she’ll let go at any second. “Yes, of course it’s okay. I just…” Donald briefly glances away from her, his brow furrowed and the corners of his beak downturned in a troubled expression. He tugs lightly on her wrists, drawing them away from his jaw so he can clutch at her hands instead. 

“I owe you an apology, Daisy.”

He looks so serious, holding her gaze with a painful sincerity that makes her stomach drop a little. But his hands remain where they are, entwined with hers so sweetly, and she banishes that twinge of uncertainty. 

“An apology for what?” she asks, mimicking his quiet tone. 

Donald grimaces. “For the worst second date ever.”

“Ah,” Daisy allows, with a smile that she can tell confuses him. “Well I have to admit, I’ve never had to watch a Greek Titan eat any of my exes.”

“No, no, I mean - before,” Donald insists haltingly. “Our real date. The one I ruined.”

The one that she stormed away from, he’s polite enough not to say. 

But Daisy has had ample time tonight to think about their ill-fated second date. As she watched Donald tumble into Crownus’ maw with a scream. In the wake of a gut punch of relief when he called out to her, unharmed behind the monster’s double-paned stomach. As she sat in the gloom of this guest bedroom and stared at the wall, willing her hands to stop shaking. 

During all of that, she thought about this tentative, wonderful thing between them and how much she would have lost had she not turned back. 

Daisy squeezes his hands, caressing the back of his fingers with a thumb in reassurance. 

“I seem to remember a certain weird friend of yours doing his level best to disrupt our date from the start,” she says mildly. 

Donald winces, taking her joke and steering it in the wrong direction. “Storkules means well, he can just be a little...much. But I didn’t know he was coming, I swear. None of it was supposed to go this way.” 

“I’m guessing Greek gods don’t RSVP in advance?” When Donald’s pained expression goes unchanged, she scoots closer until their knees brush. “Why didn’t you just tell me what was going on? I had no idea he was  _ that  _ Storkules; you had me thinking you just kept weird friends.”

She almost feels silly, in hindsight. This is Scrooge McDuck’s nephew after all, and everyone in Duckburg knows what kind of craziness the old man himself gets up to. But as Storkules plowed through their conversation like a Greek bulldozer, the longer it went on Donald sunk further in on himself instead of protesting. 

He smiles weakly. “Technically you wouldn’t be wrong.”

“Donald,” she says, edging on reproach, because that was nowhere in the vicinity of an answer. 

He sighs, ducking his head. “It sounds ridiculous now but...I, I didn’t want to scare you away.”

“You and I met during an armed robbery,” Daisy reminds him wryly. “I don’t think tall, buff and demigod would’ve done the trick.” 

“But it wasn’t just Storkules, was it?” Donald counters, and whatever he’s been keeping at bay cracks behind his eyes. His voice strains, like he wants to shout, but doesn’t allow himself to, and it's only his gentle, unwavering grip that keeps her seated. “We were attacked by a, a monster, a Greek Titan, and that’s basically a quiet night in for my family! Daisy, you, you didn’t sign up for that.” 

“Donald,” she says firmly as she presses his captured hands against her heart. “This wasn’t a blind date. I ‘signed up’ to be with you. I knew exactly what I was getting into.” Daisy thinks for a second. “Well, I’ll admit Storkules was a surprise.”

Donald’s shoulders drop, his furrowed brow slackening with them. He’s not much older than her, five years if memory serves, but years of stress, rather than age, have deepened the lines in his forehead, around his eyes, at the curves of his beak. Lines of chronic exhaustion that she’s wanted to smooth away with her thumb, but like a stain she knows it would do no good. 

He looks lost now, like he expected her to agree with him. Like he’s wondering why she isn’t getting up and walking out the door. Again. 

As if Daisy’s read his mind, or he hers, Donald asks, “Why did you come back?”

There’s no accusation in his tone. The question is offered quietly, almost hesitantly, and confusion is plain on his face. He looks at their joined hands rather than look her in the eye. “I, I won’t ask why you left, I know that was my fault. But you were ready to leave. You  _ did  _ leave. Why...what made you come back?” 

Daisy clicks her tongue. “Is that any way to say thank you?” she teases, deliberately light, despite the guilt building up behind her teeth. She regrets leaving, especially if its put doubt in his mind. 

Donald blanches. “Thank you!” he exclaims at once. “Thank you, Daisy, didn’t I—I thought I— ?”

“Donald,” she soothes, reaching up to cradle his face. All at once he falls silent, surrendering to her touch, and she smoothes her thumbs over his cheeks in gratitude for his implicit trust. “Donald, I was kidding. You don’t have to thank me.” Daisy breathes through the last of her inhibitions. “I came back because I saw a giant monster in my rearview mirror. And I realized that as upset as I was with you, I cared about you more. I didn’t want you facing that alone.”

He covers her hands with his own, eyes warm and dark in the light of the room’s single lamp. She feels a blush rise to her cheeks. “Thank you, Daisy,” he says again, measured and slow. “You saved me. You keep saving me. I...no one’s ever done that before.” 

Daisy recalls at once her old fears, sinking their claws into her mind as she tore down the road in her convertible. The years may not have been kind to her dating life, but there are some things she now knows with certainty: she’s nobody’s mother, and she isn’t looking for a fixer-upper (code for an irredeemable slob, among other things). What she wants is a partner, an equal. 

And here’s Donald, who looks at her like she’s his hero. Like she single-handedly took down Crownus with a swing of her purse and he couldn’t be happier about it. 

Donald, who she knows was prepared to let her go, if that’s what she really wanted. 

She’s certain now that her fears don’t apply to this man. 

“I don’t mind saving you, just try not to get eaten by a giant monster on our next date,” Daisy murmurs as she sways closer to his beak. 

“No promises,” Donald replies, closing his eyes. 

  
  
  



End file.
